David Morris wrote:
>> validator allowing the client to request the resulting resource if it
>> wants it. I don't see much benefit in complicating the specification by
>> a conditional return of the modified resource when the same task can be
>> acheived by a followup method, and quite safely so thanks to cache
>> validators.
>
> The problem that this doesn't cover is the care where two patches are
> applied in rapid succession. Returning the result allow a client that
> cares to compare the result with expectation to apply that level of
> verification. The validator will not match when the first client makes its
> request since the second client has already 'upgraded' the current
> validator for the resource leaving the first belt and suspenders client
> w/o an easy way to confirm correct application of the patch.
David,
that's correct, but I'm not sure whether this is a problem in practice.
If there's a race condition, the client will not know what the resulting
entity for the original PATCH request was. But why would it matter?
Somebody else modified it in the meantime anyway...
Best regards, Julian